[HN Gopher] Liberal Societies Have Dangerously Low Birth Rates
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Liberal Societies Have Dangerously Low Birth Rates
Author : neverminder
Score : 26 points
Date : 2021-03-18 18:59 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| Socially liberal societies, in their current form, are literally
| not sustainable. And what sustainability they appear to have is
| actually propped up by socially conservative natives,
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/republicans-more-kids-democra...
| and immigrants from socially conservative countries.
|
| This isn't related to modern society, necessarily. The US total
| fertility rate was well over 3.0 in the 1960s, but even then most
| women worked outside the home. It's also not necessarily
| preference. The average number of children women say they want is
| 2.7, while the fertility rate is now well under 2.0. I strongly
| suspect it's the result of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and
| 1970s, which made it socially acceptable for men not to commit to
| raising families.
|
| [1] This is actually a fairly new phenomenon, appearing in the
| last few decades.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >which made it socially acceptable for men not to commit to
| raising families.
|
| I'm sure the government assistance rules that discourage
| marriage (i.e. the several thousand year old stable child
| raising family unit) aren't stalling that trend.
| wetmore wrote:
| I wouldn't be so quick to blame the sexual revolution. There
| are many other relevant factors that have changed since the
| 60s, such as the cost of owning a home and raising kids. People
| are less likely to have nearby family to share childrearing
| responsibilities, and so on. It's likely a confluence of
| factors.
| 5tefan wrote:
| I think liberal is rather a label, a brand to have something to
| be proud of. Actually our societies are very opressive. We have
| to function as expected at all times. As a parent I can tell you
| this is impossible. Toiling along and working through live and
| spending money on meaningless stuff is the new meaning of life.
| There's precious few headroom to have children. You can't have
| them or can't afford them.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If you think _this_ is oppressive, you ought to try living in a
| society that 's _actually_ oppressive.
|
| > We have to function as expected at all times.
|
| No, we don't. (I mean, yes, we do to the degree necessary to
| keep a job and not get arrested. Other than that, though, no.)
| Nothing is forcing you to "function as expected at all times"
| except your bowing to others' expectations for you.
|
| > Toiling along and working through live and spending money on
| meaningless stuff is the new meaning of life.
|
| Only if you make it so. As it sounds like you have figured out,
| there's no actual meaning there. Don't keep chasing down that
| dead end; you won't find anything there.
| unknown_apostle wrote:
| It's also an expression of choice and priorities. Every child
| is a new person that really exists, that can experience the
| world and continue to live forever in the love of God.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| There's a lot of high minded philosophizing in the piece
| including the notion that not having children is some kind of
| subconscious death wish of liberal modernity, but I want to
| propose a much simpler answer, what if people have fewer children
| simply because they want to, with no deep sinister ideological
| underpinning?
|
| It's not like people in impoverished nations have half a dozen
| children because of some deep intrinsic philosophical vitality,
| they have that many children because family is both social
| security and primary source of labour. In 'liberal' societies,
| but more accurately to say is developed societies (because the
| trend is the same in Japan and China etc), investing more
| resources in fewer kids is what pays off, and all material
| reasons aside grants more freedom to women in particular.
|
| The whole tone of discussions about low birth rates always
| contains this implicit assumption that there's anything wrong
| with it. My spouse and I also don't want kids, and it's not
| because we're doing coke every weekend and can't wait to die,
| it's because we never felt like we wanted kids, and only in
| recent times do people actually have the kind of liberty to live
| that way.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It's not a death wish for _you and your spouse_. It 's a death
| wish for _society as a whole_ (anthropomorphized).
|
| For you and your spouse, sure, have kids, don't have kids,
| nobody cares either way. Do whatever floats your boat. But if
| the society as a whole consistently doesn't have kids, then the
| society as a whole is headed to be replaced by a different
| society that _does_ have kids.
| sanp wrote:
| Also, liberal societies (correlated with higher income
| societies) have a higher opportunity and actual costs
| associated with having kids. Potential loss of income and cost
| of raising kids arw both significantly higher than in lower
| income societies.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| > what if people have fewer children simply because they want
| to
|
| > The whole tone of discussions about low birth rates always
| contains this implicit assumption that there's anything wrong
| with it
|
| First, only certain societies have only recently arrived at a
| value that there is nothing wrong with having more kids.
| Traditionally, having babies and raising them was considered to
| be of utmost importance.
|
| Second, it still is of utmost importance given how our
| societies are structured. You want to work until your 60's,
| then retire and live until mid-80's? Fine. But who is going to
| work/pay for your food, entertainment, healthcare, security and
| general societal infrastructure? All those things need humans
| which you are not going to raise.
|
| So "developed" societies seem to convince themselves that there
| is nothing wrong with not having babies, while at the same time
| utterly reliant on "underdeveloped" societies to import people
| from.
|
| > investing more resources in fewer kids is what pays off
|
| How do you plan to balance Social Security and budget with
| fewer people working?
| tom_mellior wrote:
| I hate this narrative of "a pyramid scheme was set up by
| people who were bad at math and/or knew they would be dead
| before the consequences hit; now you must produce babies to
| feed the monster they created".
|
| There are so many other ways of stabilizing retirement
| systems. If by "Social Security" you specifically mean the US
| system, there is this interesting fact: https://en.wikipedia.
| org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States... "If workers and
| employers each paid 7.6% (up from today's 6.2%), it would
| eliminate the financing gap altogether." (Also, the payroll
| ceiling is ridiculously low, and why does it even exist
| anyway?)
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I think the most straight-forward answer is that the working
| age needs to be raised, budgets need to be balanced, people
| need to be self-reliant and responsible for their own future,
| and if all else fails we have a safety net.
|
| I don't actually think that retiring at 60 is reasonable in a
| society like this, but I also don't think this is a huge
| problem because many people don't want to retire that early,
| myself included. In a society with fewer kids we'll need to
| plan ahead more, but we also are much more productive, so I
| don't see this as a problem, and most importantly not in
| conflict with liberalism.
|
| Subjecting personal choice about how many kids to have to
| welfare debates or population planning to me is the opposite
| of liberalism if anything.
| ku-man wrote:
| Can someone enlighten me and list the benefits of over-
| population?
|
| Low birth rates in Norway or the Congo are a net gain, they
| cannot be 'dangerous'. Unless, of course, you are a nationalist,
| racist or religious nuts.
| jppope wrote:
| I've always been curious about why wealthy(ish) individuals in
| free societies don't want to have (more) children.
|
| Theoretically one would expect the opposite. Subjectively, I see
| individuals that would prefer to go on vacation then have
| children, but that is a false dichotomy- thinking that having
| children would reduce your quality of life or your ability to do
| fun things.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Look at tourist hotspots and how people behave there. A lot of
| people on their holidays want to drink, stay out until the wee
| hours of the morning, perhaps use soft drugs, etc. These are
| perfectly ordinary things to do on holiday, but add a child to
| the mix and society becomes quite disapproving. _Of course_
| children mean, for a subset of holidaymakers, no chance to do
| what they consider "fun things".
| kbelder wrote:
| Not disagreeing, but the converse is that there's a large
| subset of people who feel that playing ball with a kid in a
| backyard, or helping a kid learn long division, is a lot more
| fun than partying and smoking pot. Those are the ones that
| are still having children.
|
| Biologically, if a smaller subset of a species is
| reproducing, it's going to accelerate evolutionary pressures.
| Memetically, there may be a parallel cultural effect.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| In recent years, there have been a lot of articles that aim
| to remove the stigma around regretting one's children.
| Women feel pressured to pretend that they love their
| children so much and think life is better with them, even
| when deep inside they wish they had never had them. So,
| even if that subset of people ends up having kids, it
| doesn't necessarily mean evolutionary pressure towards
| people actually liking those kids and the activities done
| with them, and the subsequent generation may end up being
| anti-natalist regardless.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| From a status perspective, the wealthier you are the more time
| & money it costs to have&raise children. Housing, childcare,
| education, etc... basically all the things that have gone up at
| a much higher clip than official CPI inflation calculations.
| Being a wealthy person in liberal western society you are
| likely to live in a high cost urban setting. Some real NYC
| numbers that I am sure SF is similar for.
|
| * Housing
|
| No kids? Rent a decent 1BR place for $3-4k/mo in any
| neighborhood you want. 1-2 Kids you can squeeze into a 2BR?
| Rent is now $6k (2-3 kids / need a 3BR make that 10k), and you
| are now limited to neighborhoods that are zoned for "good
| schools".
|
| * Childcare? $2k/mo per kid
|
| * Education? If your kid doesn't get tracked the way you want /
| you aren't zoned in the right catchment area / you have bought
| into the arms race - private school is $4k/mo per kid
|
| So 0->1 kid is +$5-9k/mo
|
| 0->2 kids is +$7-15k/mo
|
| 0->3 kids is +$13-25k/mo
|
| These are post-tax numbers so 1st kid requires +$100k of income
| and at the high end the 3 kids could mean needing +$500k
| income.
|
| There are a lot of great cities you could cut these numbers in
| half, or in a quarter, but scale should be fairly similar.
|
| Without immigration & some more conservative families, we'd
| probably see the same population aging/declines of Western
| Europe and Japan/Taiwan/Korea.
| kar5pt wrote:
| >I see individuals that would rather go on vacation then have
| children, but that is a false dichotomy
|
| Why is this a false dichotomy? Clearly having children will use
| up time and resources that could otherwise be used for
| vacations and other fun things.
|
| I've also heard a theory that in poorer areas, children can
| become a status marker. So when people see no hope of climbing
| the socioeconomic latter, they resort to having lots of
| children to prove their "virility".
| [deleted]
| raducu wrote:
| It is a false dichotomy because you can go on vacation with
| your children.
|
| But the added cost per child is just soooo much more than any
| vacation.
|
| I'd love to be able to handle a second child. I can
| comfortably handle the financial aspect, it is the lack of
| energy, lack of free time and my anxieties that prevent me
| from taking the plunge.
| Grakel wrote:
| The artificial womb will be the great invention of whatever
| century. It's not a false dichotomy for women who practically
| get ripped in half and are never quite the same again, but are
| expected to stay fit. Of course birth rates go down as women
| start to get treated like people.
| raducu wrote:
| I'm sure that's a minor reason why people don't have kids.
|
| The main reasons are economical in nature.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I always worry about pregnancy if I'd have a kid. Not only
| could you get a kid with a disability, your SO could be
| injured or die too. Not to mention post-partum. I knew of a
| woman whose sister gave birth and something happened where
| the birth cause a brain hemorrhage in her and she basically
| became a quadriplegic. Not only is it devastating for
| everyone involved, but essentially as the father, you're
| now a caregiver for two people. How the hell would you work
| a full time job, take care of a newborn AND your now
| paralyzed SO? Pregnancy is a real scary dice roll that you
| just hope luck stays on your side all 9 months.
| aussiegreenie wrote:
| Educated people have low birth rates. China and Russia are not
| Liberal states and their birth rates are very low as well.
|
| Covid-19 has caused millions of births to be avoided and birth
| rates have fallen out of bed. Demographers are constantly
| lowering their population projections and are still vastly
| overestimating the 2050 population.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| > Educated people have low birth rates.
|
| Educated people _with access to modern medicine_ have low
| birthrates. New England was well educated from 1650-1800, but
| the birth rate was still high.
| monocasa wrote:
| I think it's more access to quality healthcare. No longer do
| you have to have as many kids as possible to be sure you'll get
| over the hill of the childhood mortality rate. Our healthcare
| system has made losing a child closer to losing a spouse rather
| than a simple fact of life like it once was.
|
| Education is just a proxy for access to services like that.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Women not required to get married to have a successful life
| anymore is more likely the actual culprit. Objectively,
| women's rights and egalitarian opportunities makes it easier
| for them not to have to get married to survive or rely on
| others. Marriage is most likely the #1 way low value males
| back in the day could've had kids. Now they're essentially
| not able to have kids and more people are ending up single.
|
| I'm not a traditionalist, pro-marriage, or even religious.
| The long term cultural effects spanning all cultures show
| that when both sexes have close to equal rights, birth rates
| drop.
| monocasa wrote:
| I don't think that's it, since women aren't also required
| to get married to have children anymore either. It also
| doesn't account for childless couples, or the lower rate of
| having children even among those who have children as you
| go up the socio-economic ladder.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| This doesn't explain why so many skip kids entirely.
| monocasa wrote:
| They never wanted them and they have access to safe and
| effective birth control and abortions.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Okay but why did they never want them?
|
| There has to be some kind of underlying reason why humans
| are going against what we would expect our biology to
| want, which is to reproduce.
| monocasa wrote:
| Because our biology relied on us wanting sex, and having
| no mechanism to stop kids from being produced from sex?
| Whether you want kids or not didn't really factor into it
| for the vast length of human existence.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Animal biology has a desire to copulate. That doesn't
| necessarily mean a desire to reproduce per se. Modern
| birth control lets human beings copulate all they want to
| satisy those urges without the reproduction part.
| 177tcca wrote:
| China has low birth rates?!
|
| When, the last year?
| prewett wrote:
| For quite a while, thanks to the One Child Policy. The birth
| rate has about about 1.6 babies/woman since about 1990. It's
| been creeping up, but the current generation got used to the
| idea of one child per family. In addition, living in the
| cities is really expensive, and the hukou system means your
| kid is only guaranteed education in your hometown. I think
| you can often pay a fee, but I'm not sure, and in any case,
| it living is already expensive enough.
|
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?location.
| ..
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Every country on earth (but 2?) have birth rates asymptotically
| approaching just-under-replacement. This is nothing to do with
| politics of the sort in the title. It has to do with information
| and accessibility to birth control.
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